


The Law of the Wise

by Tam_Cranver



Category: Deadwood
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tam_Cranver/pseuds/Tam_Cranver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice Isringhausen is trying to catch an embezzler, but she needs a little help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Law of the Wise

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Proverbs 13; the motto of the Pinkerton Agency was "We never sleep."
> 
> Written for Suburban Noir

 

 

Alice always knew how to handle men. Women, they could be hard--you had to convince them you weren't stealing their man, you weren't taking a cut of what was theirs, hell, you were hardly a woman at all, there to be whatever they wanted you to be--but men, all you had to do was appeal to their sense of the power that the strong held over the weak, and they were yours. 

Jeremiah Travis wasn't any different. A rich banker, from rich folks, who didn't know how good he had it, he was stealing from the rich folks who left their money with him. They were starting to cotton to him, or at least the one who had contacted the Pinkertons was, but Alice was way ahead of them.

"Mr. Travis," she said in the high, breathy voice that made her sound like a silly little girl, "You want I should get the bedroom ready for Mrs. Travis?"

Mr. Travis leaned back in his chair and gave her a smile that hid none of its filth from her. "Aw, that's all right, Alice. She's not comin' for another day; surely that can wait. I've surely got things for you to do in the meantime." 

He surely did. They always did. She smiled, soft and shy, like a girl who'd only ever kissed a boy before, who didn't have any idea what men and women did together. It shouldn't have fooled even him, seeing as how he and she had been fucking ever since he'd hired her two months ago as a maid for the new house he had built for his wife in Cheyenne. Travis was the kind of man who only ever saw things the way he wanted to see them, though, and he gestured her closer to his desk.

It was easy enough getting him off, though he sure as hell didn't do much to make it good for her. Afterwards she looked in his eyes and said, "Oh, Mr. Travis, I'm gonna miss you."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said, satiated, smug, tangling one hand in her hair and the other in the laces of her corset under her dress.

"But your wife! She's comin' tomorrow, and...." She looked away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the safe where he kept it, the money he stole from his clients. "You won't have any use for me then," she murmured. She couldn't get in the safe--he didn't have the combination written down. She'd have to find someone to crack it sometime when he was out. When the wife got home, she decided, she'd pick the woman's brains about her husband's spending, because God knew he hadn't started embezzling in Cheyenne.

He grinned at her with too many teeth and said, "Honey, I'm always gonna have use for you. I do my best to be a good husband, but God, how's a man supposed to keep a faithful heart in his chest when there's beauties like you tempting him?"

She simpered like that was the kindest thing a man ever said to her and pouted when he shooed her off his lap. "Go on, now," he said. "Can't have you distracting me while I work, can I?"

She stood and gave him a shy smile over her shoulder. "I suppose not, sir," she said. "I'll just go down to the butcher's, then, and get us something nice for dinner."

"You do that." He licked his lips. "I'm in the mood for something special tonight."

Christ Jesus. She didn't usually care one way or another about her jobs, but she was really gonna enjoy putting Travis away. She gave him one last smile before sweeping out of his study, closing the door behind her.

Cheyenne was nice, after a couple of years of shit jobs in shit settlements. It wasn't New York, or Chicago, but at least it had some of the finer things in life, like a store for ladies' clothes and a bookstore and some rudimentary institutions of government. There was even talk of building an opera house. Not that Alice would be around to see it, or that she'd even have the time under this particular alias.

The telegraph operator was a weasly little man, much like every other telegraph operator Alice had ever seen. A weak and bland appearance and a nervous demeanor seemed practically requirements for the job. "Good day," she said, giving him a polite but businesslike smile. "I wish to send a message."

"Of course, Miss," said the operator. "If you'll just--I have these forms--" He fumbled with them under a pile of papers on his desk. Shit. An inefficient telegraph officer, the perfect assistant in a matter of some secrecy and mild urgency. But until they invented a telegraph machine that Alice herself could operate from wherever she happened to be at any given time, she was at the mercy of Cheyenne and Black Hills Telegraph Company and whatever incompetents they deemed fit to hire.

Mr. Wells, said incompetent, seemed determined to explain every aspect of the well-known telegraphing form to her. She wasn't Alice the Halfwitted Maid here, though, so she sent him to busy himself clearing his fucking desk while she laid out the situation for Wilson, her immediate superior, as briefly as possible. _No paper trail. Stop. Must catch him in act. Stop. Money here. Stop._ It was only a matter of time. Perhaps her next job would be somewhere back East. She would welcome the change.

"Excuse me. I gotta send a telegraph here to South Dakota."

She knew that voice, and when she looked up and turned her eyes towards the entrance, she found she knew the face, too. "Why, Silas," she said. "Fancy meeting you here."

Adams' mouth opened a little and he narrowed his eyes at her in disbelief. "Fuck's sake," he said. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Oh, I imagine the same thing you are: making a report to our employers of our progress in the tasks assigned." She smiled at him, the smile that let a little of herself show through, because he wouldn't dare kill her in public here. "Unless of course you and Mr. Swearengen have parted ways?"

"We haven't," Adams grumbled. "Not that it's any of your business. Now if you'll excuse me, I got a telegraph needs sending." He gave Mr. Wells an impatient look, pointedly avoiding Alice's eyes. She didn't need any more direction.

"Of course," she said, stepping away from the counter. "It's been so nice to see you. It's a fine thing to meet an old friend unexpectedly."

Adams had a flat expression, and his shoulders were stiff as he turned towards Mr. Wells,. "Old friend, my ass," he said in a low voice as Mr. Wells handed him a telegraph form. There were men, thought Alice, who resented being fooled by a woman, but there were also those who resented the betrayal of trust, the thought of someone taking advantage of their kindness, seldom given. She rather thought Adams was of the second sort. It was just as well, as that was the sort of man who could be convinced again of something else.

She decided something suddenly. "Would you like to have a drink with me, Silas?" He gave her an incredulous look, and she smiled again, more muted. "After you've finished your telegram, of course. Tonight, ten o'clock, maybe?" Sex exhausted Travis; if she fucked him at nine, he'd be out by nine fifteen.

"Why the fuck would I want to do that?" asked Adams, looking between his form and her as if he would have preferred to be able to ignore her. 

"No reason, I suppose. Unless you'd like a fuck for old times' sake."

"And give you a chance to murder me in my sleep? After my boss sent you running, I'd as soon turn my back on a wild horse." He handed his form back to Mr. Wells and said, "There, if you'd please fuck off and send this."

Oh, as if Silas were the one against whom Alice would seek vengeance. "I should think that that was really more your specialty," she said. "What harm did I ever do to you?"

Adams seemed to think about that one for a moment. "Fine," he said at last. He had a longer, squarer beard now than he had when Alice had known him, and it gave him an older look in such moments of deliberation. "I'll drink with you," he said. "But if you're thinking of playing me for your own twisted ends, or on behalf of the Pinkertons...."

"You're so very suspicious, Silas," she said. She didn't have any more time to kill now; she really did have to make a trip to the butchers, or Travis might start to grow suspicious himself. "I'll see you at ten, in the saloon on Main Street." Surely that was a public enough place to suit both of them. She was able to find a decent cut of beef at the butcher's, which was perfectly well-suited to her purposes this evening. Travis' idea of `something special' was never very interesting, either at the table or in bed.

At dinner, he complained of one of his customers, who'd expressed some reserve at entrusting the whole of his savings to one bank. "Damn fool," he said, "probably keeps his money under his pillow like an old prospector." Alice giggled, thinking the man's money was probably safer there than it was with Travis.

A full stomach made Travis sleepy, and Alice had scarcely had time to turn on the oil lamps before he was sprawled out on his bed, clutching at his sheets like a small child and snoring fit to wake the dead. It was still only nine, so Alice busied herself in leafing through what records Travis kept. There were detailed accounts of who had deposited what money when, but when the money had vanished was less carefully recorded. What she really needed was a ledger detailing how much money total had been in the bank at each date, but those records were kept at the bank, and she couldn't exactly walk in to ask for them. It was particularly difficult because they knew her at the bank as Travis' maid; they would hardly allow her to look at their accounts without reporting it to their employer.

At a quarter to ten she put on a cloak--the nights were cold in Cheyenne, even in the height of the summer--and made her way over to the saloon. Adams was already there when she arrived, his back to the wall and his fingers nervously tapping the table in front of him.

"Hello, Silas," she said. She sat down with her most elegant posture, knowing that it threw him out of his stride.

"Alice," he muttered. "I ordered two whiskeys."

"That'll be fine." She liked a good whiskey, and of course Travis wasn't about to share his liquor with his innocent young housemaid. She smoothed a hand down the front of her skirts and said, "So, shall I take it then that you're still living at Deadwood?"

"Yeah." He had a sullen scowl, like a young boy, which was rather humorous, considering the bloodshed and scheming he dealt in for a living. "You still with the Pinkertons?"

"As a matter of fact, I am." She leaned over, giving him a better view of her bosom.

He sniffed. "I would've thought, after failing to bring in either Swearengen or the widow, you'd have left that line of work, lest your bosses find you taking Al's bribes and throw you away for a useless cunt."

"You thought, scared of your boss and mine, I'd run?" At his nod, she smiled again. "`The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.'" "Righteous my ass." The barmaid came by, then, a pretty blonde-haired thing in a dress that suggested she maybe performed other tasks for the saloon's patrons when her services as a barmaid were not required. She dropped the two glasses of whiskey on the table with a smile for Adams and a narrow-eyed, sharp look at Alice before whirling away to fill the mugs of the men at the bar. Adams took a long gulp of whiskey before putting his glass down and pointing at Alice over it. "You are fuckin' bold, though, I give you that."

She took a sip of her own whiskey. It wasn't the best she'd had, but it would certainly do, provided she stuck to this one glass and let Adams do most of the drinking. "It doesn't take any particular boldness to report an accident," she said calmly, and she let her smile turn sly.

"An accident?" He peered warily at her.

"Of course. By all reports, Mr. Garret fell to his death by accident. Surely the Garrets couldn't expect us to frame an innocent woman?" She sipped her drink again, and added, "Particularly when said innocent woman has such...influential friends, in a town where where the law has very little sway."

He laughed, short and bitter but not wholly unamused. "You're a clever one for saving your own skin."

Indeed, she couldn't deny it, nor would she wish to. "I am at that." She straightened up and asked, "While we're talking about it, how is Mrs. Garret?" Drowning in laudanum, she hoped, spurned by the grieving sheriff, with Sofia in the hands of a competent parent.

"Mrs. Ellsworth," said Adams shortly, any hint of relaxation gone, and she wondered how far the interests of Mrs. Garret had coincided with those of Al Swearengen for Adams to be defensive on her behalf.

Alice feigned a woman's polite interest in gossip, but only half-heartedly, knowing that too hearty a demonstration in Mrs. Garret's well-being would ring false. "Oh, is she married again, then?"

"She was." Adams slammed his drink down onto the table, empty. "Until her husband was murdered by the fucking Pinkertons."

It was news to her, but then, she had heard from Ruth Chatterton, another agent, that the Agency had aligned itself with George Hearst, who had interests in the Black Hills. She could only assume the hapless Mr. Ellsworth had somehow interfered with Hearst's designs. "How unfortunate," she said, and because allowing herself to speak freely on this subject could come as no surprise to Adams, she let herself say with some bitterness, "The woman does seem to have a difficult time holding onto husbands." 

"Fuck you," said Adams. "It's thanks to you people she had to sell her claim, and now we have to deal with George fucking Hearst's bullshit if we want to get anything done at all." He stood up, and for a moment Alice feared he was leaving entirely, but he reappeared a moment later with another glass of whiskey. 

"I didn't have anything to do with that," she said. Indeed, she couldn't imagine that Wilson would ever send her back on any task related to the political or financial affairs of Deadwood, with her identity so compromised. "And as for Hearst, I've heard he has very little interest in politics, so long as he's left to operate his mines."

"You don't know shit about it," he said, taking a swig from his new glass. "He's a fucking cocksucker."

"I'll take your word for it." She kept her voice soft and placating, but matter-of-fact; that had always met with success with Adams before. "As I said, I didn't have anything to do with that. I'm actually here on an embezzlement case."

"Embezzlement?" Adams raised his eyebrows. "There any money in it for you?"

She shrugged. "There will be if I'm able to prove that a certain banker here is stealing from his depositors." She gave him her most disarming smile, and said, "Along those lines, I have a question for you."

"I fucking knew you were going to get me involved somehow," he said into his glass, but he didn't leave, nor did he even sound particularly angry at the thought.

"I was only going to ask if you yourself have a bank account in Cheyenne. As you do business here so frequently, I thought you might find it to your advantage to have a ready source of money, should you need it."

Adams leaned back, looking a tad tipsy but not drunk enough to be easily persuaded if he didn't want to be. "I got an account back east. I can have money wired any time I want."

He obviously wasn't going to make this easy. "Of course you do. I merely wondered if you might be comforted by the assurance of knowing your eggs are not all in one basket, so to speak, or indeed, if you might find it useful to be owed a favor by an agent employed by the Pinkertons." There was, of course, no guarantee that he would ever be able to cash in that favor, but there was no need to mention that unless he specifically required a written agreement.

He straightened up at that, interested in hearing her offer if not necessarily in accepting it. "What do you want?"

She smiled and took out a thick, leather-bound ledger book from her carpetbag. She'd been watching the clerks at the bank very attentively, the times she had been called to bring Travis lunch at work, and she knew very well what kind of books they used there. "The bank is Mr. Jeremiah Travis', on First Street."

"I'm familiar with the place," he said with a nod.

"Then you may be aware that when a new account is opened, or a deposit made, a note is made in a ledger, much like this one"--she gestured towards the book on the table--"along with the total amount of money in the bank at any given time. If you yourself were to open an account with their bank, very likely they would note your deposit in just such a book. Perhaps at some point, they might be distracted. People very often are, particularly when they work at dull jobs all day. The ledger in which they keep their records might be replaced with another book--this very one, perhaps."

Adams narrowed his eyes. "You want me to switch the books--take theirs and leave that one." At her nod, he said, "Won't they be able to tell which book is which, seeing as how theirs has all the figures in it?"

"I've thought of that." She opened the book and showed him a page, on which she had written figure after figure in the hand of John Lackey, the day clerk at the bank. "I've estimated some reasonable figures for the bank's daily commerce over the last three months, which is when at least one of the thefts is thought to have occurred. It should be at least a day before the theft of the book is discovered, and they won't think to associate their missing ledger with you, if you're careful about making the switch."

"And if they do, they won't think to associate me with you, and if they do, you'll just tell your bosses it was an _accident._ " He shook his head. "You're a fucking snake, you know that?"

She smiled again. If he thought to insult her, he would have to try harder than that. "The Pinkertons are to receive fifty thousand dollars for the retrieval of our client's funds. Fifteen are to go to me. I'd be pleased to give you five for your assistance."

"Which is just what Al paid you to get lost," Adams grumbled. 

"I'll throw in a fuck, to sweeten the deal," she said, and Adams' head shot up.

"For fuck's sake!" he said. She kept quiet. She hoped he would agree to the deal, but if he didn't, she hoped he was still interested in the fuck. Men were always more persuadable after sex, and what's more, Adams was one of the few genuinely talented men she'd slept with in the course of her job. A man who could bring her to orgasm more than once in the span of one fuck was worth sleeping with again, and the fact that he might ultimately prove helpful on this case only sweetened the deal.

Finally, he said, "Shit. Five thousand dollars. It'd be better if you could get me the name of Hearst's new head geologist, but I'll take the money."

Alice's smile was genuine, now, and she said, "Where are you staying now?"

"Hotel next door."

"Let's go there now and discuss the terms."

Adams stared at her, tilting his head inquistively to one side, as if trying like hell to figure her out. Then he said, "Let me pay for the whiskeys," and he got up to go to the bar while Alice took a moment to bask in her victory.

In the end, the evening was everything she had hoped it would be. Adams was as good in bed as she remembered, and he agreed to make the switch in exchange for the two thousand dollars she had with her, an IOU for three thousand more, and a written promise to discover Hearst's most recent hires and to report them by telegram to Adams within three months. It was of course still unsure whether Adams would carry through with his part of the bargain, but then, he didn't remember her signature and so would be hard-pressed to extract the fulfillment of her promise or the IOU from "Alyce Iringhusen" should he fail in his task.

Afterwards, they had a brief conversation, in which Adams revealed that Trixie, a whore from the Gem, had almost killed Hearst, and that a traveling company of actors had taken up residence in what was once the Chez Amis, and Alice described in some moderate detail her investigation of Travis. It was a relief to be herself for an hour, a comfort to have the continuity of hearing about people she'd known.

It couldn't last forever, though; it never could. 

As Alice was lacing her boots back up, Adams rolled onto one elbow and watched her with a resigned look in his eyes. "I don't suppose you're the kind of woman a man marries, are you?"

For the moment it took her to decide the question was genuinely meant and not a veiled insult, and for a few moments after, Alice was too surprised to speak. It wasn't as if Silas Adams was the first man to talk of marriage to her, but he certainly was the first who knew the least part of what she did for a living. Probably he was cuntstruck--she understood the feeling, having gone for months with nothing but Jeremiah Travis and her own hand between her legs--but she gave him the respect of thinking he'd asked the question with a clear head. "I suppose it depends on the man," she said truthfully. "There's not a soul on this earth I'd give up my work for." She'd learned early on that if you did for yourself, you'd always have at least one person to rely on. Then again, "Of course, it's a hard world to be alone in."

"I'm not alone," said Adams, staring at the ceiling.

Ah. Not actually a proposal, then, which was just as well, all things considered. "I never said you were." She stood up. "Travis' wife is arriving tomorrow, which may hinder my ability to leave in the evening, in which case I'll send word. Otherwise, I'll meet you tomorrow night, at the same time and location as tonight, and with any luck both of us will have accomplished what we need to."

"Yeah." Adams rolled back onto his back. "Guess I'll see you then."

"I look forward to it. Goodnight, Silas." He mumbled a goodnight in return, and she walked quietly down the stairs. This hotel was a good deal more respectable than Farnum's; people were actually sleeping.

As she stepped outside into the chilly night air, she took a deep breath and pasted her silly young girl smile on. She was still on the job, and the Pinkertons never slept.

 


End file.
